


your name is a song in her mouth

by ThereAreNoLines



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Drabble, F/F, Introspection, POV Second Person, aka an excuse for me to wax poetic about how beautiful isabelle lightwood is, artist!Clary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 05:25:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6840676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereAreNoLines/pseuds/ThereAreNoLines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clary draws Isabelle at the crack of dawn and reflects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your name is a song in her mouth

When you set an alarm for four thirty five am, she laughs in that way of hers that echoes in the dark even when she’s not there. She tells you that if you wake her up too, she will leave, and though you know that she’s teasing, you’re still afraid, briefly. But she smiles at you, not the featherweight smile she uses to put everyone around her at ease, but a real one, the one that’s reserved for you, the one that warms you from the inside out, and you take your blooming skin and slide down into the bed next to her, even though you know you don’t deserve to be there.

Her fingertips trace along your cheek – she’s always touching you. It took a long time to get used to, her hands searching your skin, her face pressed to yours, to your neck, to your thighs. She takes particular care tracing your tattoos, the lines you designed yourself, as though she were trying to memorize them, even though you know she already has. Goodnight, Clary, she says, her lips against the shell of your ear, and even though you weren’t tired at all before, suddenly your head and limbs are heavy, and the last thing you see is her face, illuminated by moonlight streaming through the window, and you know that even though you don’t remember your dreams, you will dream of her.

You sleep, and you don’t need the alarm to wake up. You reach over to turn it off before it goes off, before rolling over and studying her. In sleep she achieves a remarkable stillness; when she is awake, she is always moving, fluid and fast, and you worry about keeping up or catching her, and it is a sight to see, the way she always moves with purpose, with no hesitation. But sometimes you just want to look at her, to memorize her as well as she has memorized you.

You slide out of bed. Your feet hit the cold floor, the shock spiraling up your bones. You take your pad, your pastels, out of the box in the closet and climb up on the windowsill. The sun is emerging from the horizon, just barely, and that is your intent. It’s good practice, you have been told, to draw the sunrise. To try to capture the uncapturable is futile, but then, so is all art. And knowing you will fail before you even begin is the best way to break down your boundaries, to do things you never thought you could. To break the rules.

You try to draw the sunrise, but the horizon looks suspiciously like the curve of her body as she lies in bed. The foliage turns into the swirls of sheets draped along her shape. Before you know it, you are turned toward her, your legs hanging over the sill, smudging your pastels on the page to try and capture the exact color of her skin as it is warmed by the pale pink light creeping into the sky. This is not the first time you’ve drawn her, but somehow, it feels different.

You draw her hair. It runs down her shoulders, across her body like water. You can feel your hands running through it as you blend the raven chalk into the paper. It slips through your fingers like a river. The angles of her face remind you of cliffs’ edges, sharp, high lines, rounded smooth and soft by wind and beating water. She is a force of nature. She is a masterpiece. You don’t know how you could ever compare.

You could draw her for hours, and you do, and time moves as fluid and fast as she does. The pink light expands to orange, to yellow, and her body is still the horizon, but the light is wrong for her, so you paint her in blues and purples, deep and dark and yet inviting. You put stars in her hair, the sheets spiraling into galaxies around her. You light her skin with a silver glow. She deserves a bed among the stars, but instead she chooses to lie next to you, and you can never give her the light she is worthy of, but God, you’ll never stop trying.

You don’t notice her smile curving onto her face, trying so hard to capture her on paper that for a moment you forget she’s right there before you. Clary, she sighs into the morning air, and your name is a song in her mouth. Are you almost done?

You look over at her. Her eyes are still closed, but she is smiling your smile. You leave the pad on the windowsill and tiptoe back to bed, sliding between the sheets, warmed by her heat. She knits herself to you, resting her face on your chest, her hands flowing over your back, tracing along your spine until you arch into her. Her legs find yours and you lie there, as inextricably tangled as the stars swirl themselves into the sky. You aren’t worthy of this, or her, and you’ll never understand how someone like you matches someone like her, but every masterpiece needs a frame, and God, you will always do your best to do her justice, even if you fail every single time.

I love you, you whisper into her hair, and even though she has fallen asleep against you, somehow you know she hears you.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fic in years so this is pretty rough. I just wanted to write some Clizzy because AO3 is sorely lacking. Might try more when I finish the season.
> 
> Also I'm obsessed??? with Isabelle Lightwood????? it's embarrassing honestly.


End file.
